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The end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017 has seen a lot of arrests of visual kei members. While band members skirting the law - and sometimes even breaking it - is nothing new, it is rather unusual to see so many high-profile cases in such a short time span. So today, let's indulge in some visual kei drama both past and present and look at some other famous cases and arrests. Grab some tea, because this topic is going to get delicious.

Disclaimer: While the title says "Bad Boys" of visual kei, some of the stuff covered here is particularly heinous. It's one thing to be a "bad boy" and it's another thing to be a rapist. Please don't read into the title too much.

Sakura (The Madcap Laughs, ex-L'arc~en~ciel)

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Reason: On February 1997, Sakura, L'arc~en~ciel second drummer, was arrested on charges of heroin possession. When news of sakura's arrest became public, the group's CDs were removed from the shelves in record shops. Their song "The Fourth Avenue Cafe", was replaced as the fourth ending theme of the Rurouni Kenshin anime after only four episodes. In addition, the release of the "The Fourth Avenue Cafe" single was postponed, but eventually released in 2006. He lost sponsors, the band had to move back to an indie label (and it almost broke them), and fans were shocked. He quit the band of his own accord in October and laid low for two years before forming the band Zigzo in 1999. He's had a modest musical career since them, currently he is in The Madcap Laughs.

Reason: With outfits as eccentric as their music, 秘密結社コドモA was one of UNDERCODE's stranger selections, sporting an upbeat chiptune electro-rock sound. Poised for modesty, they hit a snag when bassist Kouta departed, but the situation fell apart when Dai was dismissed. Various factors lead to his dismissal, including lying to staff and band members, leaking personal information about CODOMO A, other UNDER CODE bands, and the UNDER CODE office to the public, and for stealing money and flipping studio and band equipment for cash. Eiji reported Dai to the police, but no one was able to contact him as he was not at home and not answering his phone. Dai eventually paid back the money but he was not invited back to the band when they reformed as キボウ屋本舗 (Kibouya Honpo). Dai himself has disappeared completely.

Reasons: The stories with KISAKI are endless; from rumors such as stealing Kyo's girlfriend to selling pictures he posted on his blog as a photo book and passing off unknown 90's visual kei tracks as his old band demos, the man has made himself into a legend for better or worse. For this topic we'll stick to facts. The earliest known source of juicy drama is his tax evasion in 2007, when he owed 45,000,000 yen worth of taxes (approximately $380,000 USD). He hid it in his younger brother's personal account. The judge sentenced him to one year and six months jail time, a four year suspended sentence, and a 12,000,000 yen fine (approximately $100,000 USD). He announces retirement from the stage in response to this incident and disbands Phantasmagoria, but he starts activities a few months later as if nothing happened. In 2012, he announced an absence from live performance due to illness and was sent to the hospital. Kisaki claimed that he was deathly ill and vomiting blood. He posted updates on his blogs to confirm his earlier announcement, including one that implied someone broke into his car while he was sick. It was soon discovered that these pictures were not his, which would imply that he was not in the hospital, which would imply that he's not sick, which directly implicates that he was lying. He then deletes these pictures, which implied further guilt as he wanted no more investigation into the matter. He then announced his retirement from the stage ahain, but he returned a few months later as if nothing had happened. Again. Mid 2016, his Twitter account was allegedly hacked and pictures of Sui (Megaromania) passed out from intoxication surfaced on Twitter. Due to the mentor-apprentice relationship it was assumed he had with Sui, it reflected very badly on him and he got a lot of heat for it. He announced retirement from the stage after this latest scandal....okay we all know he's coming back in a few months let's be real...

Reason: The high-profile case everyone is waiting for! On January 27, 2016, drummer SHINTARO (age 34) was arrested and fired from visual kei band アイヲロスト(aiolost) because he was suspected of violating the Child Welfare Law. It was then revealed that he would get acquainted on fans on an exchange bulletin board and told them that "he would introduce them to the idol office" and that "they would meet with band stakeholders". He would then coerce them into sexual parties knowing they were underage, take pictures of them, and blackmail them into silence. The girl in question was noted as a big fan of アイヲロスト(aiolost) and participated in at least five orgies with him, and she denied all charges. アイヲロスト disbanded after these accusations. He's been active on social media since his arrest, but I was not able to uncover much information about a court case or what penalties he will have to face.

Reason: On August 12, at a friend's house in Toshimaku, Tokyo, 12012's vocalist Miyawaki Wataru (27) was drinking with five friends, where he got into an argument and allegedly strangled a a 21 year old female friend. She had a sprained neck and bleeding surface wounds and her injuries took a week to heal. She then filed a report on the 23rd. Beyond these, details of the reports were inconsistent. For example, one take says they were five friends at a house, the other says three friends at a bar. Regardless, Wataru confessed to this crime (while drunk) and was arrested a few weeks later on September 10th. This wasn't his first run in with the law either, as a few years prior he was caught for possession of a weapon in an airport. The news shocked the scene, as at the time 12012 were arguably at the height of their popularity. Many fans expressed their support for 12012 and Wataru in particular despite the charges, and even Kisaki wrote a blog message directed at Wataru expressing his support. Wataru has since reconciled with the woman, and arranged an out of court settlement. The band publicly apologized by shedding their "kyouki shouji" musical concept and releasing Mar Maroon.

Reason: This incident happened in tandem with the Miyawaki Wataru incident covered above, which is more proof that 2016 wasn't the only year visual kei went to hell in a hand basket. In 2001, Kaku Kouichi (39), a former employee of Asatsu DK Inc (ADK), Tomioka Hiroshi [DYNAMITE TOMMY] (43), the president of the music label FREE-WILL, and Murasaki Ittoku (35), also of FREE-WILL, placed an order for costumes, concert costs, music video costs, and other overhead costs for the popular band Dir en grey, and were suspected of defrauding ADK of 324,000,000 yen (approx. $2.8million). The majority of the money was given to Tomioka by Kaku. Keep in mind that at the time, Free-Will was a very vast and influential label even containing the legendary UNDERCODE label, so fans were worried that bands on or affiliated with Free-Will would have their assets frozen. This included Dir en grey and 12012. In regards to the investigation, Kaku confessed to the charges while Tomioka, who had been dragged into the fraud scandal, denied them. He was arrested on September 14th and was held for more than twenty days at the Tsukiji office. He was indicted despite the police investigation finding no suspicion of fraud on Tommy's part. Tommy was enraged at the whole situation, and was quoted saying "The police and the prosecutor performed a thorough investigation. The reason for my arrest was due to the asshole judge's assumptions!". There's a larger subtext about prejudice against rock musicians in Japan here, but suffice to say DYNAMITE TOMMY was eventually cleared of all charges. I'm not sure about the other two.

Reason: A little known debacle overshadowed by all the other happenings of 2016 is known as the Bar Velu scandal. At the center of it is bassist Manew (Yamaguchi Shou (29)) from visual kei bands The♡Valentine and TRUST. He also made a living as the manager of a club called Bar Velu, which employed visual kei musicians as hosts to cater to female fans. It was very lucrative, amassing 20 million yen in a little under 14 months. Police raided the bar on April 18th, and the next day Manew was booked for employing male staff members to sit near and entertain female customers without a valid license. This violates the Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses. He admitted to the charges. I'm not sure if the bar was closed down.

Reason: On November 22 2016, Akinori, the bassist of Nagoya-kei rock band lynch., was arrested for “antisocial behaviors”. This was later revealed to be marijuana possession. The amount and how intoxicated he was at the moment is unknown, but in response lynch. went on hiatus and canceled all their tour dates including their “Countdown Japan 16/17” live show. The band and management came together to discuss ways to move forward as a group of five, but that proved impossible and Akinori departed from the band on December 20th.

update: after several months of silence, Akinori eventually returned to lynch.

Reason: Takahiro (real name 田原尚泰 (Tahara Takahiro), age 38), from indie visual kei band FAZ, was arrested after attempting to scam a 76 year old woman for 6 million yen. His reasoning was because the band needed money and this was a quick way to do it. This idea came at a very poor time, since at the same time ToshiA (the same person who owned MATINA's STORM) was experiencing foot pain so bad that he couldn't perform since November. This caused postponement of their two last singles for their 5-single campaign and the band had to perform as a trio. ToshiA was later diagnosed with ankylosin spondylitis (chronic inflammation of joints) and was put into treatment at the hospital. When he received this news, he decided to put FAZ on indefinite hiatus after their live at HOLIDAY SHINJUKU on February 6, 2017. Takahiro was quickly fired from the band a few days later and his sister issued a formal apology to his fans on Twitter.

Reason: This story starts sometime in 2016. RIO from LONDBOY hooks up with a girl who claims she is legal, and even shows RIO her ID to prove it. They see each other for some time, but for reasons RIO decides he wants to break it off. In response, the girl spread sensitive photos and conversations online. RIO went to the police to solve the situation, and it was then that he discovered the girl was underage. He was arrested on the spot for fornication with a minor, but was released the next day. At this time, LONDBOY will proceed without him until further notice. This is one of the most recent of the cases, so at the time of writing there is still no information present.

Reason: He was arrested in April 2017 just one day after Rio was arrested for as of yet unspecified reasons. I literally felt Monochrome Heaven shake as the news unfolded. No one expected anything of the sort to hit visual kei band chanty. The band and management have issued a formal apology, but shia himself has been quiet on the whole situation. It's been a few weeks and we still don't have details. We can only speculate on what happened and what will come next.

Update: It was later confirmed that the Hiroshima Prefecture Police detained the musician on charges of fraud.

On May 31, 2005, singer Daishi underwent a urinalysis that showed up positive for methamphetamine and was arrested by Kanagawa police. When the story broke in the media, all of the band's merchandise was removed from shelves in Japan. Daishi's solo tour was cancelled, and his solo EP was removed from shelves. On June 5, the band announced via their official website that they would be on hiatus due to Daishi's arrest. On September 30, Daishi was sentenced to one year and ten months probation with a suspended sentence of three years by a court in Yokohama.

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Kisaki is the obvious choice because the man is a legend for all the wrong reasons. Dai's situation was just shocking at the time; I remember pretty much everyone liking "the funny and cool bald guy from Kodomo A" only to wake up one day to read about him stealing everything from the band. It was a mess.

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I don't want to be a pain in anyone's butt, but as a huge Color fan I have to point out that Dynamite Tommy's real name is Tomika Hiroshi, not Tomika Yuu. When his scandal was originally translated into English, the person that translated it misread the kanji for his name. For the scandal itself, I do believe the other two guys involved were found guilty. However, I can't remember what ended up being their punishment.

I remember when the Daishi scandal unraveling when I was a sophomore in high school. My weeaboo friends and I made it into a inside joke for years to the point we drew an anti-drug stick figure comic about in our school newspaper.

I had a hard time picking, but in the end, I picked Kisaki because he seems like he has the crap personality to go with his 'bad boy' scandal history to make him the ultimate bad boy of vk. Dai's and Takahiro's scandal put them a close second and third due to the fact they were gutsy enough to pull or try to pull off what they did. If Sakura or Daishi had another scandal to go along with their drug bust, then they might have had a better chance of getting that bad boy title. Most of the other guys brought up just seem to be dumbasses with poor life choices instead of bad boys.

Chloroform almost disbanded because of something their vocalist did. I believe the thread here said the other band members described it as "inexcusable behavior," although no one's come forward with what it was iirc.

Supposedly Yuuga (of both Devil Kitties) used to beat bandmen who were signed to his label. There was probably another issue at some point with the vocalist of Curse / Mareli (who is currently the vocalist of The Kiryu) being super young, since I read he joined at band while in middle school and both bands were signed to Yuuga's label. I believe Curse eventually up and left his label and turned into LutenA, but any insinuation of drama to cause this is purely speculation on my part.

There was also a stint where he forced a member of Rentrer en Soi to grovel on stage for getting his sister pregnant (which is why one of their first guitarists left). @Takadanobabaalienmay have more details on Yuuga's workings in general.

Also, prayer candle lit for when Noah of Avanchick told Betty to not perform with them because it would make less people show up to their gigs, which then caused most of Rockstar Records come forward about the label dumping all of their funds into one band. #visualKeiWikiLeaks2016

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The drug "scandals" are nothing as far as I see it. Don't care if people (artists) snort huge mountains of cocaine ororshoot shoot rivers of heroin on a daily basis or don't do drugs at all as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. Could not care less.

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Goddammit, I was gonna post something similar to this towards the end of the year x)

To add more ~bad boys~, I also remember something about L,DEAR's vocalist raping a (underaged?) fan when he was in Devil Kitty (period 1) and when Rubik/TesRoA gave their first vocalist the boot due to "inhumane acts"....and we never found out what it was. o.o

As for the Takahiro guy, I believe it was revealed later that he ((probably)) had an accomplice, which was the JackRose guy, who was also arrested for stealing lots of yens. Can't be too sure tho, it wasn't as publicized as Takahiro's arrest.

Anyway, voted for Kisaki, Dai, Wataru, and Shintaro. I wish Kisaki would just go away, Dai's a total fucking prick, and the other two guys are literally evil. I never knew about Wataru's weapons incident...jeez.

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As for the Rentrer en soi related drama @Peace Heavy mk IIwas talking about, as far as I remember it was 蒼 (ex rentrer en soi, gt) who got Yuuga's sister pregnant and then kinda forced into marry her (which is why he hasn't been in a band ever since).

And yes, the story about TOTTO (L,Dear /Devil Kitty) was confirmed by Yuuga. He was accused for being part of a group rape of a girl in Tokyo. He was also active on a lot deaikei sites (date-sites but not really?) and Yuuga officially stated that if people see him they should avoid him and definitely not contact him IRL or on the internet.

Yuuga and Yayoi beating up people on their labels are basically confirmed, although I think it generally happened a lot more in the 90's. ( Eternal's final live was also called 喧嘩上等 which translated to "Great at fighting", or something along those lines).

Regarding the early 90's I think most of the bands tried to live the western "sex, drugs & rock'n'roll" lifestyle.

As for the Rentrer en soi related drama @Peace Heavy mk IIwas talking about, as far as I remember it was 蒼 (ex rentrer en soi, gt) who got Yuuga's sister pregnant and then kinda forced into marry her (which is why he hasn't been in a band ever since).

And yes, the story about TOTTO (L,Dear /Devil Kitty) was confirmed by Yuuga. He was accused for being part of a group rape of a girl in Tokyo. He was also active on a lot deaikei sites (date-sites but not really?) and Yuuga officially stated that if people see him they should avoid him and definitely not contact him IRL or on the internet.

Yuuga and Yayoi beating up people on their labels are basically confirmed, although I think it generally happened a lot more in the 90's. ( Eternal's final live was also called 喧嘩上等 which translated to "Great at fighting", or something along those lines).

Regarding the early 90's I think most of the bands tried to live the western "sex, drugs & rock'n'roll" lifestyle.

Here's a video of hide trashing a hotel room::

Yayoi beat up some of his clients? Seems counterproductive to me, since makeup can't always hide bruises

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One could care less about otherwise very carefree, condescending attitudes/lifestyles that most of these bandomen exhibit but let's talk about more significant, large-scale effects here - i.e. things that have impacted songwriting/production heavily AND permanently later on.

Kisaki is quite obvious but even so, I think Tommy has the most notorious, and notable backstory here if we follow aforementioned criteria. Come to think of it, there is a clear negative association with him in an instant whenever there are label talks with his "foster children", i.e. Dir members or even 12012 until they decided to cut their ties or idk. We might never know how much of illegal shite has been done (e.g. 2007 case) to keep his poster boys relevant in the eyes of Nipponjins and gaijins.

Literally the Don Corleone of visual kei - with Kisaki being "lesser evil" per se.

And since it's all the rage for us to sneer at rockstars for doing "the hard stuff": Kiyoharu did hard drugs too yet he has tons of dedicated stans and 0% media judgement. Go figure.

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One could care less about otherwise very carefree, condescending attitudes/lifestyles that most of these bandomen exhibit but let's talk about more significant, large-scale effects here - i.e. things that have impacted songwriting/production heavily AND permanently later on.

Kisaki is quite obvious but even so, I think Tommy has the most notorious, and notable backstory here if we follow aforementioned criteria. Come to think of it, there is a clear negative association with him in an instant whenever there are label talks with his "foster children", i.e. Dir members or even 12012 until they decided to cut their ties or idk. We might never know how much of illegal shite has been done (e.g. 2007 case) to keep his poster boys relevant in the eyes of Nipponjins and gaijins.

Literally the Don Corleone of visual kei - with Kisaki being "lesser evil" per se.

And since it's all the rage for us to sneer at rockstars for doing "the hard stuff": Kiyoharu did hard drugs too yet he has tons of dedicated stans and 0% media judgement. Go figure.

Well, he lost the rights to KUROYUME not too long ago for failing to pay taxes so I don't think he gets all the passes in the world. Whatever good will he was riding on then has exhausted itself by now. I thought about including him here for that but he didn't get into any ~real~ trouble and there's not much more interesting than what I mentioned so I left it off.

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@Euthanasia@Zeus@AimiGen7I forgot to touch his post-Kuroyume 2009 reunion days so gomen for forgetting about details you pointed out there guys. Yes, he did cheat and there has been some sort of strong netizen opposition aimed against him afterwards which led to his temporary account changes and other specific promotions - can't remember much about that scandal though.

I and my nihongo comprehension might be even rustier at this point, but didn't Hitoki confess (thru twitter, momentarily that is) he had been given no position nor voice to use against Kiyoharu's late trademark decisions ("Avex-Kiyoharu"-scenario) - he was in the band too, no? @sads123or maybe another Kiyoharu/Kuroyume fan might know better if that legit statement took place a few days after Kiyoharu's tax failure leaks.

Not worth emphasizing among other dirty bandomen as @Zeusresponded already, but worth mentioning anyway. God knows if SADS bassist suddenly refusing to meet Kiyoharu and co. and departing was related to Kiyo being an egocentric diva with pickle cards in his pockets...

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Not worth emphasizing among other dirty bandomen as @Zeusresponded already, but worth mentioning anyway. God knows if SADS bassist suddenly refusing to meet Kiyoharu and co. and departing was related to Kiyo being an egocentric diva with pickle cards in his pockets...

What is a "pickle card?"

---Other Drama---

There was a small band called "ARREST" that had the worst luck, although nothing as high as kisaki-tier drama (more akin to Kodomo A). Most of their former members are in the new-ish band Ashley, but the reason their first band broke up is because their bassist stole all of their costume funds and ran. If I'm remembering their news thread here correctly, several members were later involved in a car accident and then one of their CDs ended up getting canceled. If I had such a crappy luck streak, I'd call it quits too!

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Frankly enough I have some relatives from Omaha too so at times I low-key use their local -isms in English when describing things like these "pickle cards" or generally just "pull tabs" (I think MN people know this one), i guess...

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Frankly enough I have some relatives from Omaha too so at times I low-key use their local -isms in English when describing things like these "pickle cards" or generally just "pull tabs" (I think MN people know this one), i guess...

Oh wow, I never knew I was using actual slang xD. I thought I just made up the term on the spot based on "Get out of jail free card" xD